Picasso paintings stolen in Switzerland

Two paintings by Pablo Picasso worth nearly five million Swiss francs ($5.02 million) have been stolen from a museum in eastern Switzerland, police said.

The two oil paintings, Tete de Cheval from 1962 and Verre et pichet from 1944, were stolen on Wednesday evening from a cultural centre in the eastern town of Pfaeffikon.

Police said the circumstances surrounding the theft were still unclear, but that the thieves managed to leave the building around 7:00 pm local time.

The security alarm was set off as they left the museum, and guards noticed shortly afterwards that the paintings were missing.

The two paintings, one showing a typically stark horse's head in blues, greys and whites and the other a still life of a glass and pitcher in red and green, belong to the Sprengel museum in Hanover, Germany.

The museum has offered an unspecified reward for the paintings' safe return.